756 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION J. 



called into activity. Further elaboration is unnecessary, beyond 

 noting how all this indirect training conflicts at every point with the 

 direct teaching the boy receives. At home, in school, and in church 

 he is told to love his enemies. To do good to those who hat-e him,, 

 and never, under any circumstances, to seek for revenge. He is told 

 that lying is a sin, that the prison awaits the thief, and unhappiness 

 the disobedient. But these facts are imparted more or less as moral 

 maxims, and in the form of an appeal to the intelligence, whereas 

 the unethical influence of his stoiy books is a direct and delightful 

 appeal to the emotions. We must reverse all this, and train the young 

 through their imagination to truer relationship with the society of 

 which they r.re members. We must eliminate from their environment 

 all artificial stimuli to latent anti-social sentiments, and in their 

 place we must substitute naturai stimuli to those emotions best 

 fitted to modem life. 



The enchanted realm of nature can be made more delightful than 

 the wildest fairy tale, and its portals stand invitingly open to the 

 young intelligence. Lead him to see and to seek the wonders which 

 lie hidden in the life story of the humblest plant, or the lowliest 

 insect, and you will surround him with a glamour exceeding m glory 

 all the fairy tales that ever were told; a glamour which the coming 

 years will only deepen. Moreover, along with truer perceptions of the 

 life around him, and of his relation to that life, emotions of an 

 ethical nature will be stimulated, and the foundations of a moral 

 character established. 



What applies to the elementary stage of ethical training 

 applies with equal force to the more advanced stages. In every case, 

 even in the most complex, direct appeal must be made to the 

 emotional nature. Nor is this so difficult as it appears. If from 

 their earliest childhood children have been subjected to an ethical 

 training of the emotions, they will respond naturally, and ethically, 

 as an ever increasing data bring more complex stimuli. Let duties 

 of self control and self respect, of patience and perseverance, of 

 courage and truthfulness, be emotionally enforced. By constant 

 care, let the latent tendency towards these virtues be kept in full 

 activity, and the counter emotions as constantly repressed, and at 

 last will come a time when the children will show a tendency to 

 become automatically self-controlled, patient, truthful, persevering, 

 courageous. This is the dawn of true morality, which is spontaneous 

 and natural. The truly moral agent is unconscious, not only of any 

 compulsion from without, but also of any compulsion from within. 

 The sense of duty no longer painfully urges him along the right path. 

 He acts ethically without effort, because he acts naturally. This is 

 the ideal state which George Eliot dimly foresaw as the state in 

 which it would be as natural for a man to do right as it is now for 

 him to grasp some object when in danger of falling. 



When children have arrived at this mental condition with respect 

 to the elementary emotions, right actions with which these emotions 

 are concerned will be performed with the minimum of expenditure 

 of emotional energy, leaving a reserve of energy to be expended in 

 stimulating the emotions upon which depend the more complex ethical 

 functions, kindness and thoughtfulness for others, finding expression 



